Finance Director of the Year

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This award is for professional excellence in financial management and leadership. It recognises an individual’s contribution to their organisation’s financial performance and towards the improvement in health or healthcare locally or nationally in any of the four UK nations. It also aims to highlight  finance directors’ role in leading and developing the NHS finance function.

*By Finance Director we mean anyone who is responsible for finance at board level.  The position must be a statutory appointment and the person must be recognised as the finance leader, finance director or chief financial officer.

 

Winner David Melbourne, Birmingham Children’s Hospital

Also shortlisted Neil Kemsley, NHS Devon; Tony Whitfield, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust

 

Melbourne takes top prize

David Melbourne hasn’t just transformed the finance function in his two years at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, he has transformed the way people think about and use finance to deliver change in our organisation.’ So says Birmingham Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust chief executive Sarah-Jane Marsh of the newly crowned HFMA Finance Director of the Year.

Mr Melbourne, the trust’s chief financial officer, has put finance and his department at the heart of the trust. He has quickly won the respect of clinicians, has led the transformation of services, and acts as lead sponsor for areas as diverse as high-dependency care through to the provision of play facilities for children at the hospital.

He firmly believes finance has to reach beyond its own borders and engage with clinicians, ward managers and budget holders to get them to take more responsibility for managing budgets. This has benefited the trust and its young patients – the one-stop shop introduced by surgeons has reduced patients’ anxiety, while the one-third reduction in cannula infections has cut lengths of stay and saved money.

‘It’s not just about being a finance director,’ he said. ‘It’s about going out and talking to the speech and language therapy team about how they are improving children’s lives.

‘Play is important – some of the most ill children find it difficult to have anaesthesia and it can take some time to placate them. Play can reduce that time.’

By introducing benchmarking information, Mr Melbourne has enabled managers and clinicians to compare – sometimes for the first time – their services against similar providers in the UK and abroad. And he has drawn on his previous experience as a primary care trust finance director to lead the engagement of local GPs on the impact of the proposed reforms of commissioning.

Customer feedback on the trust’s finance function has improved. The profile of the department across the trust has been raised through his initiatives, and he encourages staff to look beyond the bottom line and to help facilitate change that leads to improvements in care and delivers savings.

He has also gained regional and national recognition. As well as being West Midland HFMA Branch chair, his team’s real-time system that monitors and drives cost improvement has been feted as a model of best practice by the Department of Health’s QIPP (quality, innovation, productivity and prevention) team. The system ensures clinicians have been involved in every decision made about savings and it allows any team in the hospital to access information about their savings programmes, including progress against targets.

Demonstrating his ability to think strategically, Mr Melbourne is leading an estates options appraisal across Birmingham’s NHS and he has helped shape a new payment system for specialised commissioning, including children’s services. The latter has drawn support from NHS deputy chief executive David Flory and NHS medical director Sir Bruce Keogh.

He was also involved in negotiations to modify proposals to significantly reduce the specialist top-up element of the tariff for children’s services.

While commending the other candidates, the judges were particularly drawn to Mr Melbourne’s local and national achievements.

‘We were impressed by the very positive comments in terms of David's impact on the organisation, particularly in relation to the interface between clinicians and managers and the development of systems to support change,’ they said.

‘He has led on developing a paediatric

top-up tariff and delivered significant cost improvements across the trust.’

Paying tribute to the other shortlisted directors, Mr Melbourne admitted he was surprised to be named Finance Director of the Year but added: ‘I am really, really proud and honoured to receive this award. I didn't think it could happen and never expected it. It means more to me because I didn't know anything about the submission as I was nominated by my colleagues at the trust.’

 

Tony Whitfield

Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust’s Tony Whitfield is well known nationally for his specific work on costing, as well as wider contributions to the HFMA, but he is also a leading proponent of the link between quality improvement and cost reduction.

He is closely involved in his trust’s ambition to be the safest in the NHS and by marrying quality improvement and financial strategies he has ensured high-quality services will be safeguarded.

By the end of 2012/13 the trust will have reduced its cost base by about £50m (15%). Working alongside commissioners, he has led the redesign (and cost reduction) in unscheduled care, and has been instrumental in securing the trust’s new private finance initiative building.

 

Neil Kemsley

NHS Devon had significant levels of historic debt when Neil Kemsley was appointed finance director in August 2009, but he acted quickly to stabilise the primary care trust’s finances.

Initially appointed on a secondment – he was given the substantive post in April 2010 – Mr Kemsley brought a swift end to a number of protracted negotiations and brought together finance, performance and contracting functions into a single team. As a result he has brought clarity and rigour to financial management and put NHS Devon in a strong financial position.

An active HFMA member, earlier this year Mr Kemsley was appointed NHS Devon, Plymouth and Torbay cluster director of finance, contracting, performance and IT. He has worked hard to raise the credibility

of the finance and contracting functions within the local health economy, as well as in the emerging clinical commissioning groups.

 

The Judges

David Flory CBE, Deputy NHS Chief Executive, Department of Health

Chris Hurst, Health & Social Services Directorate General, Welsh Assembly Government

Suzanne Tracey, Director of Finance & Business Development, Royal Devon & Exeter NHS FT and President, HFMA

Mark Knight, Chief Executive, HFMA

Graham, Moore, CFO, NHS Supply Chain